Haku'un Yasutani
| Hakuun Yasutani | |
|---|---|
Yasutani Rōshi and Brigitte D'Ortschy
|
|
| Religion | Zen Buddhism |
| School | Sanbo Kyodan |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Born | 1885 Japan |
| Died | 1973 (aged 87–88) |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Rōshi |
| Predecessor | Harada Daiun Sogaku |
| Successor |
Yamada Koun Taizan Maezumi |
Hakuun Yasutani (安谷 白雲 Yasutani Haku'un, 1885–1973) was a Sōtō Rōshi, the founder of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Buddhist organization.
Ryōkō Yasutani (安谷 量衡) was born in Japan in Shizuoka Prefecture. His family was very poor, and therefore he was adopted by another family. When he was five he was sent to Fukuji-in, a small Rinzai-temple under the guidance of Tsuyama Genpo.
Yasutani saw himself becoming a Zen-priest as destined:
There is a miraculous story about his birth: His mother had already decided that her next son would be a priest when she was given a bead off a rosary by a nun who instructed her to swallow it for a safe childbirth. When he was born his left hand was tightly clasped around that same bead. By his own reckoning, "your life ... flows out of time much earlier than what begins at your own conception. Your life seeks your parents.
Yet his chances to become a Zen-priest were small, since he was not born into a temple-family.
When he was eleven he moved to Daichuji, also a Rinzai-temple. At the age of thirteen he was ordained at Teishinji, a Sōtō temple and given the name Hakuun. When he was sixteen he moved again, to Denshinji, under the guidance of Nishiari Bokusan Zenji.
Thereafter he studied with several other priests, but was also educated as a schoolteacher and became an elementary school teacher and principal. When he was thirty he married, and his wife and he eventually had five children.
He began training in 1925, when he was forty, under Harada Daiun Sogaku, a Sōtō Rōshi who had studied Zen under both Sōtō and Rinzai masters. Two years later he attained kensho, as recognized by his teacher. He finished his koan study when he was in his early fifties, and received Dharma transmission from Harada in 1943, at age fifty-eight. He was head of a training-hall, but gave this up, preferring instead to train lay-practitioners.
To Yasutani's opinion Sōtō Zen practice in Japan had become rather methodical and ritualistic. Yasutani felt that practice and realization were lacking. He left the Sōtō-sect, and in 1954, when he was already 69, established Sanbō Kyōdan (Fellowship of the Three Treasures), his own organization as an independent school of Zen. After that his efforts were directed primarily toward the training of lay practitioners.
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